Racial & Ethnic Groups

Our new survey of multiracial Americans finds that, for two-thirds of Hispanics, their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background – not something separate.

Interracial marriages have increased steadily since 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in 16 states.

Biracial adults who are white and American Indian are among the least likely of mixed-race adults to consider themselves multiracial (only 25% do). They are among the most likely to say their multiracial background has been neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.

We released our first report on American multiracial adults, a group that comprises an estimated 6.9% of the adult population, or nearly 17 million adults. The report looks at who they are demographically, their attitudes and experiences, and the spectrum of their racial identity.

Multiracial Americans are at the cutting edge of social and demographic change in the U.S.

It could be a half-century (or longer) before Hispanics become a majority there, according to scaled-back state population projections.

A record 33.2 million Hispanics in the U.S. speak English proficiently. While this share of Hispanics has been growing, the share that speaks Spanish at home has been declining over the past 13 years.

Race and community relations have become the focal point of tension in a series of incidents over the past year.

Although the U.S. has long had a sizable black population as a legacy of slavery, voluntary black immigration here is projected to grow in coming decades.

A record 3.8 million black immigrants live in the U.S. today, accounting for 8.7% of the nation's black population, nearly triple their share in 1980. While half are from the Caribbean, African immigration has soared since 2000.